


Solstice Dreaming

by princetemerarem (LocketShoru)



Category: Saint Seiya, 聖闘士星矢: 冥王神話 | Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas
Genre: Accurate Historical Holidays, Alraune Queen - Freeform, Aries Shion - Freeform, Basilisk Sylphid - Freeform, Basilisk Sylphid/Alraune Queen, Fluff, Hypnos - Freeform, Libra Dohko - Freeform, Libra Dohko/Aries Shion - Freeform, M/M, as mentioned relationships, holiday fic, hypnos and shion do nothing tho, in order of appearance - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21877123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LocketShoru/pseuds/princetemerarem
Summary: It's holiday time, in both Sanctuary and the Underworld. It's snowing no matter where you are, the Holy War has quieted down because snow, and pretty much everyone is in cheery festive mode. Everyone, save Hades Alone, who thinks there's something a little missing.
Relationships: Hades/Pegasus Tenma | Alone/Pegasus Tenma
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	Solstice Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xweetyk on twitter](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=xweetyk+on+twitter).



> This is for @xweetyk on twitter, as part of Rykun_DSZ's Saint Seiya Secret Santa gift exchange! I do not know if they have an ao3, if they do I'll add that. They asked for any of Tenma/Alone, Sylphide/Queen, or Dohko/Shion. Out of all of these, I have literally only ever written Sylphide and Dohko but that just means I need to write more fic. I got an idea and I knew what to write and here is the result!

Silver specks of snowfall descended against his window in a tower high above the ground level of the Meikai, piling up on the windowsill near the marble floor underneath the deep violet rug. The window itself was stained glass, of course, in every colour that his Spectres could find, rainbows frozen in a dance of light that reflected off every snowflake. The weather in the Underworld was completely determined by two factors, whatever it was like on the surface world and the moods of his Judges. Right now, it was snowing, and likely to be chilly outside Judecca Castle, as evidenced by the fact even Balrog Lune, a fire demon and Norway native, had broken down and bundled up in a heavy coat and scarf over his Surplice.

Alone thought the older teen looked much nicer when he was warm and in a better mood - it was amazing what weather they recognized would do for his Spectres - but had failed in talking him into keeping him company in his workshop. Even a promise of freshly baked cookies, hot chocolate, and a seat by the fireplace hadn’t been enough to keep Lune from paperwork, so he was forced to let him go, knowing that all he wanted in the end was an excuse to yell at Basilisk Sylphide over spelling mistakes. He also knew that it was just Sylphide’s way of getting Lune out of his office for fresh air and actual socialization, which he agreed with but somehow could never coax out of him.

He set down his paintbrush into the mug firmly labelled ‘Paint Water’, standing from his chair to stretch out a bit. Haloea - the winter solstice celebration that his Spectres tended to celebrate - was approaching as quickly as the snow was piling up, and despite both Hades and Pandora scolding him otherwise, he hadn’t really been in the mood to work much more on the Lost Canvas. It was coming along nicely, he still had a fair amount of inspiration on poses and anatomy and clothing, and he hadn’t even run out of paint once, but the point remained was that his Spectres were cheerier than usual, and Haloea always meant everyone pitching in to celebrate, even in the middle of war. A rainbow of colour on a black canvas, every snowflake unique against the dark marble walls of Judecca, and his Spectres came from all over the world. They all had local traditions, and it had ended up a full on battle of the festivities. A patchwork of traditions all falling together, Christmas and Hanukkah and Haloea and Yuletide and so many more, an explosion of colour and rich foods and the perfect distraction for a vessel of the God of the Dead.

Alone’s own festivities had been small, Roman Catholic in a small orphanage in Italy, and he quite thought he preferred the patchwork explosion that his Spectres - really, his family if he wanted to get sentimental, which he oftentimes did - put together every winter solstice. At the very least, it made him want to work very little and instead spend his time in the streets of Dis, determinedly trying to find his favourite holiday food this year. Bennu Kagaho’s Oshogatsu rice cakes had always aimed for the top spot, but they didn’t stop him from thieving Acheron Charon’s challah bread, either, or from sneaking over to Dryad Luco’s to split a bowl or two of Yuletide stew with Pefko.

He cracked his neck both ways, feeling the sharp release of two cracks on either side before sighing. He loved the holiday seasons in the Underworld, but they were missing something. They’d been missing something the year before, too, and the one before that. It had been three years now since Tenma had walked away to go join Sasha in Sanctuary, and he wasn’t entirely sure if they did any holiday celebration there.

He looked up, eyeing the quiet Skeleton by the door, about his age and probably a Celestial Star’s apprentice rather than a footsoldier. They hadn’t so much as moved in over an hour, and he was barely able to perceive their silent breathing in the silence, or see the rise and fall of their breastplate. He reached for his coffee in the mug firmly labeled ‘Not Paint Water’, and to his own mute and dramatic horror, found it empty.

“You’re dismissed,” he said, breaking the silence. “I need more coffee and a walk, and you look pretty tired. You should go sleep or something, since I’m heading out.”

The Skeleton looked up, bright eyes suddenly discernible under their helmet. “Oh, I’m fine,” they answered. “I can come with you, I haven’t keeled over yet so you don’t have to fetch me back from the Hall. I’m actually trying to beat Viermer’s record, he went four days awake before he fell over and if I can stay awake longer, I get best bath hour.”

He cracked a smile to one side. His Celestial Stars tended to be on the more serious side if he didn’t focus on coaxing smartass remarks out of them. They loved him, but they were also a little afraid of him sometimes too, much as he disliked it. The apprentices, though? He had given them eternal life in exchange for the promise they’d always come back to his side when they had to leave, and they had answered by seeing who could come up with the most spectacular way of getting themselves killed, and constantly trying to beat the current recordholder.

He loved them, more than he wanted to admit, and could only wish Sasha could see in them what he did. “If I have to pull you out of the Hall any time this week, I’m going to start crying,” he informed them in response, a mock-threat in his tone. 

They slapped a hand over their mouth with an audible gasp of mock-dismay. “That would be the worst, and I will fall to my knees for a century begging your forgiveness. Also, if that happens, Lord Wyvern will string me up and read the future in my entrails.”

“He will find only the image of me crying over your corpse,” he answered, all regality and mock-seriousness retained across a straight face.

They laughed, stepping forward and offering him their elbow for a proper escort. “Then I’m sure I can escort you to whatever nefarious scheme you have in that divine mind of yours before I clear off his desk and take a nap there. I wouldn’t be fit as an apprentice if I didn’t constantly get in his way.”

“Because he must always love you before you’ll let him do his job,” he answered, and he placed his hand in the crook of their elbow. “I think I’d like to just wander through the battlements for a bit, I’ve got some thinking to do. If I need a second opinion I’ll call, but I’d like to work it out on my own first.”

They nodded, and they left his workshop together, descending into the halls where he might hear the quietest tremor of the damned screaming a few miles out from town. Even Cocytus wasn’t that close to Judecca. It would’ve been far too risky.

He ran his fingertips across the filigree etched into the railing, humming to himself. He’d been running a schedule for about a fifth of his Spectres who still had living family on the surface world, allowing them to take small holiday leaves to go visit them, even if it wasn’t on their specific holiday dates. It wasn’t many. A few had family within the Meikai itself, and far more had nobody but their fellows. There were a couple he knew that did have family up on the surface world that they didn’t visit - arguments and conflict had driven them away, or they still loved them but weren’t wanted. He understood that one, and they understood that he did, too. None of them had their sister abandon them and declare war on them the moment they’d begun to heal from the loss, but he wasn’t the only one with at least one Saint for family. He would have let them go see them anyway, out of their Surplices, if they’d asked. It was unspoken, but still true, that if they went, they’d never come back to him, and not because they didn’t want to. 

Saints were still ruthless, and hurt his Spectres, and he didn’t understand why Sasha had to lead them, or why Tenma had joined them and refused to see that he’d been wrong. He missed them both so bad he was never very sure how he’d get through the holidays without their presence. Sasha’s absence was less painful - she’d been gone for longer, and he was more over it since she kind of wanted him dead just so she’d never have to see him again. Tenma, though? Tenma had still tried to talk him out of it, and promised to return to him. On the other side of the Holy War, sure, but at least he was coming back at some point.

He stared out at the city skyline in the distance, just off the castle grounds and separated from him by the trio of temples that belonged to his Judges and half of his Celestial Stars, if he was being honest. It was beautiful against the darkness, candles and witchlight and glowing Cosmos keeping the shadows from reaching too deep and hiding terrors greater than they were. There was a shuffle and a quiet _click_ of Surplice boots against the marble, and he turned. Alraune Queen carried a large box filled with questionable materials across the battlement, eyes forward and the stems from his pauldrons aiding to keep the contents of his box from falling out.

“Hey, Queen,” he said, dipping his head in greeting. “Been busy?”

Queen glanced over, dipping his chin in return, eyes bright under his thick fringe and the headdress of his helmet. “Terribly so,” he answered, and a slight blush spread across his cheeks. “Sylphide let his apprentice take on two Bronzes at once and then has the nerve to be surprised that the kid got it handed to him, and I have to sneak into Sanctuary and get back out before moondown. Just dropping some stuff off before I head out.”

“What for?” he asked, tipping his head to the side. His hand found his braid and unconsciously started to undo it, twisting the jet-black locks around his fingers. “I wasn’t aware we were planning an invasion, at least not before next week.”

“We’re not, we’re not,” he said hastily, the stems of his Surplice raising in a familiar gesture of deference. “My father’s a Silver, I figured I’d send him a poinsetta to let him know I’m not dead. I don’t have to tell him what I’ve been up to, he’ll know it’s from me.”

“You know, that’s an idea,” he said, slowly, reweaving his braid, thoughts spinning into a frenzy. “You’re not going to see him?”

“Nah, just drop it off at his bunker and get the hell out before they realize who I am. Lord Rhadamanthys gave me clearance, and frankly I don’t think I want to explain to my father the mess he made. It’ll do.”

“Do you think I should give Tenma something? I don’t think I can invite him over for dinner,” he asked, blurting it out before he actually processed the thought. 

Queen adjusted his box, shifting it up against his hip, expression thoughtful. He was one hell of a Spectre, sweet to his friends and sweeter to those he wanted to play with before he slaughtered them, but he was a practical man and hadn’t ever seen the point in not telling him off if his strategy or idea wasn’t going to work out. “It depends,” he answered, dragging the last syllable out a bit. “Mostly on what you decide to give him. You don’t really want to give him something he might see as a threat, and I get the idea it’d be in poor taste if it implied you do in fact want him over for dinner. It’s not the worst idea in the world, no. I’d say run whatever you have in mind through Lord Minos, he’d know what message you’re sending through it.”

“Tenma’s always liked my artwork,” Alone mused, mostly to himself but still wanting Queen to hear and give feedback. “I can’t draw him a portrait, I know him well but not well enough to be totally accurate, and he’d probably think I’m trying to kill him again. _Forgive_ me for trying to save him from this whole mess, but…”

“Well,” Queen ventured, tone deferential but offering. “You could always paint him one of your landscape studies. Those watercolour ones you do on occasion when you’re trying to tell me you’re definitely working on the Lost Canvas when I can see your easel. They’re really pretty, and he’d probably like them.”

“If… if I painted something from here, like, from the Meikai, do you think he’d recognize it?” he asked. “I want him here, really. It sucks not having him here, especially since it’s all holiday cheer at the moment. I mean… You’d get that, right?” He looked him, locking eyes with the gaze of the older Spectre, one who filled some - only some, really - of the gap Tenma had left in his heart. Queen nodded, silent, letting him continue. “I just think he doesn’t see what I see here, all the good we do and why we do it. Why death is really a blessing at the end of life. He’s always said my art shows wonders in the world, do you think if I painted the Meikai for him, he’d see the wonder in here?”

“You could certainly try,” Queen agreed. “I don’t think the Saints know we actually have anything alive in here that isn’t the Goldenrain tree, and there’s a fair chance he wouldn’t just because he’s never been here. But you’d still make it look stunning. From what I’ve seen, your watercolours always kind of look like they belong in a dream. If you took that approach, maybe he would see that there’s beauty here, and I think that’s definitely worth a shot. I should really get going, but I say think on it, you’ve got a start there and it might just be exactly what you should try to give him.”

Alone nodded, fingers twisting up his braid into a mess of curls as he fell deep into his ponders, thoughts quicker than his Celestial Stars coming home after a week out on mission when they knew he hadn’t wanted them to go in the first place. He had ordered them out, of course, or at least Hades had, but that didn’t mean he wanted them to have to go. Queen resumed his task, smiling at him as he headed off. 

“I need to figure out just _what_ to paint him, though,” he muttered. Several locations stuck out at him, places incredibly beautiful if you ignored the screaming of the damned in the background, which at first had ruined pretty much everything but now was little more than background noise to him. “He should get something he’s never seen anything like before. It wouldn’t be enough to give him something he’s already seen.”

That struck out the idea of the river Acheron at night when Dis, where most of his Spectres lived, was alight in the background. It wouldn’t be the first city he’d seen from a river. He knew Tenma already knew about the Goldenrain Tree, that wouldn’t be very new to him either, and he didn’t quite think Tenma was desensitized to what they were capable of yet to appreciate the Waterfall of Blood. (It wasn’t even blood. There was just a weird plant in the water that dyed it red and grew all over the rocks. They’d kept the name mostly for intimidation.)

Judecca Castle’s gardens, maybe. They were, after all, the only thing left that they had of Persephone, with her gardens and pomegranate groves that she’d always been famous for. But he’d have seen gardens before on the more diplomatic missions, and he’d know about Persephone and how she’d fallen for Hades. They were beautiful, and tended to by two specialized Skeletons and a few immortal servants who had been demigods of Demeter in life, but they didn’t quite fit perfection.

He sighed and stood from his position, forearms protesting the movement away from where they had been leaning on the railing. What was the most beautiful place in the Underworld, anyway? And would it be good enough? Did they even have something good enough that Tenma would appreciate it?

A flicker of shadow crossed his vision, followed by a loud noise that indicated someone crashing into the castle wall by accident, and then by a string of curses in what he thought was a mixture of Dutch, German, and French. He leaned over the roofing, holding his position mostly still as he watched Basilisk Sylphide fall facefirst into the floor of the battlement, his helmet missing and snow-white hair messier than ever. 

“I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to land,” he remarked, innocently enough, once Sylphide had finally come to rest on the ground and stopped moving for the most part. “At least, I’m pretty sure that’s not how you’re supposed to do it.”

Sylphide raised his head, eyeing him with frost-blue eyes under thin but tangled bangs. “No, Majesty, I’m just practicing my crash-lands for the next time a Gold Saint pitches me through a temple,” he answered sarcastically, his annoyance firm in his voice and not at all in that heavenly Cosmos, which indicated he was far cheerier than he sounded, which was mostly accurate for the upbeat and snarky Spectre. 

Alone watched him get up and dust himself off, looking entirely nonchalant about the whole ordeal. “What’s the prettiest place in the Underworld that you’ll never see on the surface world? I need to know so I can tell Pegasus Tenma I still love him without him thinking I’m weird and going to eat him.” 

“You _should_ eat him,” Sylphide answered, mildly pompously, ruffling his hair to make it even messier. He licked his lips, eyeing Alone with the gaze of someone debating eating him at the suggestion. Alone held his gaze right back, his own divine nature preventing Sylphide from actually turning him to stone, but the hairs on his forearms rose and tingled a little. “But if you won’t, then you can show him the Ribcage.”

He blinked. Okay, it was definitely a sight Tenma would have never seen before. But it was also the skeletal remains of a behemoth half-buried in the desert, and he wasn’t too sure it would quite have the dreamlike beauty he could convey that Tenma would like. “That seems a little violent,” he ventured. “I don’t think Tenma would like that much.”

Sylphide paused, one hand on his tassets and the other folded, finger tapping at his chin, eyes to the stars above them. Then he looked back down at him, a sly half-smile gracing one cheek and a faint blush on both. “Do you have your supplies on you?”

He tapped the pocket of his coat - which was really just a robe of Aiacos’ that he’d stolen from his laundry basket, because it still smelled like the judge in question - indicating how bulging it was with brushes and jars of paint. “Always,” he answered.

“Then I’ll show you Queen’s favourite place of all if you never tell a soul,” he said, dropping his voice like it was a secret meant to be shared. “I think it’ll be the exact sort of place you’ll want for this young suitor of yours.”

He offered his hand, and Alone eyed it, intrigued and trusting. Basilisk Sylphide wasn’t the type to accidentally get him killed, he was the type to get himself killed and only apologize when he thought Rhadamanthys might not forgive him for it. He knew the blush, anyway. Queen saved the bloodbath for when he was in proper control, his favourite haunts didn’t tend to be dangerous without his presence. He took the offered hand, and Sylphide lifted him up into a bridal carry, secure and strong. He hooked his arms around his neck, and the Spectre spread his wings, and they were off.

They landed not too far from the corner of the Underworld where Dryad Luco lived and worked with the other healers, keeping the injured Spectres a long way away from any invaders and not far from the well-used Spectre entrances, so they were always at hand when the scouts or soldiers returned from their missions. It was also near the great sea that separated them from every other Underworld, the closest being Mag Mell and Duat. Sylphide landed silently in the waist-high bracken, wading through it without ever setting Alone down, wings still flared in case of a necessary and sudden takeoff. 

Alone opened his mouth to ask where they were headed - there honestly wasn’t much out here if he remembered correctly, and the only Cosmos he could detect was the healers’ wing - and Sylphide gave him a slight glower, indicating to keep quiet. They trudged through the bracken until they came to a large copse of trees, mostly oak and willow. They reeked of a magic that wasn’t quite Cosmos, one he recognized as from across the sea.

“Should I be concerned that Mag Mell’s inching on us again?” he muttered, more to himself and perhaps Hades if he was actually paying attention. These days, he tended to check in with him maybe twice a day before resuming his usual incorporeal haunts through the Meikai, occasionally taking one or both of the Twins with him. He didn’t receive an answer from the god, whose presence could be felt somewhere in Yomotsu Hirasaka, far above them and a little bit southwest.

“Probably not. They gave us this chunk as part of an alliance, according to Valentine, and that’s why nobody’s torched it yet.” Sylphide walked through the glade silently, his footsteps completely muffled by the distant tides. They seemed to be walking uphill now, abandoning the brackened moors. The farther into the woods they went, the more he could hear screaming like wind, and taste salt on the air.

The trees opened up to a clearing, one which abruptly ended as a cliff overlooking the sea. Sylphide set him down on the edge. “Here,” he said, voice proudly but Cosmos heavily embarrassed. “Welcome to Harbinger’s Rock.”

He folded his legs under him, settling into a comfortable position, and looked around. He could identify the trees around him, now so thick he couldn’t see more than a few feet into them. Oak and rowan, ash and birch, willow and maple. The grass wasn’t too high, just above his thighs as he was sitting, but it was a bright emerald green indicative of something alive that they didn’t much have outside Persephone’s gardens. The clearing itself was branched in with four-foot tall rosebushes, flowers grown to plump buds but not yet in bloom. The cliffsides that he could see were bone-white. and the rocky beach below almost silver. The sea was a deep azure, alive and glowing like aquamarines over the tides. There wasn’t a speck of snow, and the gentle breeze off the sea was cool but not chilly. 

As he looked around, he decided this had to be it. This was his perfect landscape, and he knew he could make it come alive on the page. “So,” he started, slyly, noting that Sylphide’s cosmos had grown no less embarrassed. “What made you think of bringing me here? You said it was Queen’s favourite, but I don’t see how you’d know that, unless…?”

“Oh, get off it, you divine little runt. I’m not getting bullied by a fifteen year old because he thinks I’m a romantic.”

Sylphide’s tone was _just_ offended enough to be hilarious, and the laughter bubbled up from his chest and past his lips before he really noticed. “I knew it! The great Celestial Victory Star Basilisk Sylphide, sworn to the Wyvern Division, on his knees and blustering excuses because he won’t admit he’s in _love_.”

“I am not!” Sylphide yelped. Alone glanced over, noting the sharp points of his Cosmos and the heated blush standing contrasted against his pale features. He unbuttoned his robe and pulled his favourite sketchbook out of the inside pocket, reaching for his watercolour set with the other hand while he was at it. 

“Well, as Hades Alone, I order you to sit down and tell me about him,” he crooned, settling into a comfortable position, using his knees to prop up his sketchbook while a smug smile found its way onto his cheeks. “I think I’ll be sitting here a while, and you know the Judges don’t like it when I’m off on my own. You can’t just leave me here. I’ve got you _trapped_ , so start talking.”

Sylphide muttered what he was sure was a string of French curses under his breath, but settled with his back against a tree and his arms folded. “You don’t get to tell anyone, least of all Queen, you hear me, you awful little gremlin? You hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Syl,” he replied sweetly, looking up and batting his eyelashes at him. He pulled his favourite pencil out of his pocket, and set himself to work on sketching. Roses around the bottom corners and trees framing the clearing and the sea, and stars on the misty horizon. He didn’t exactly know how to paint the sound of screaming, and figured he didn’t have to. He could paint seaspray for the taste of salt, though, give it a bit of sparkling touch.

Sylphide grumbled a bit more, but he did finally start to open up after a pointed look. “I actually live with him, which makes things _worse_. I mean, we all just crash in Caina anyway because His Honour needs us just enough we’re only losing sleep by heading back to Dis, but that means I’m almost always within about a hundred, hundred fifty feet of the guy unless one of us gets sent on a solo mission.”

Sylphide sighed, and he focused on detailing roses, looking up to study how perfect the petals were, noting the specific shade of pink on them matched the Spectre’s cheeks. “You’d figure it’d be how he fights, the jackass,” he muttered, voice somewhat distant, and he knew that the other was lost in thought. “You’d figure it’d be how bloodthirsty he gets, how he doesn’t want them dead but massacred, and he won’t stop until you can’t see what parts belonged to who. But it’s not. It’s not even that he’s so sweet it’s almost sickening, how enthusiastic he is to lend a hand or smile at you. Fuck, he smiles at _everyone_.”

He set down his pencil and picked up his paintbrush, holding the tip of it between his teeth as he started to set the watercolours to mix properly, mixing three shades of blue into three different ones. “He smiles at me and I feel like I do when Rhadamanthys tells me I’ve done excellent. I get up and he says that he’s cleaned Basilisk for me while I was out, and he makes me feel like the luckiest damn guy on the planet. He isn’t even going out of his way, he does that sort of shit for everyone. I’m no different, and yet here I am, pining like Val does for His Honour, because he had the gall to be nice to me. He’s going to get himself killed, being that nice to me.”

For a moment he remembered how poisonous Sylphide’s techniques were, how in control of himself he had to be to keep from hurting his fellows, a cruel trick that some Basilisk Spectre before him decided he needed to have. He didn’t have to worry about it personally, being as divine as he was, but for the others it probably was a concern. He dipped his brush into the paint water, stirring it before dipping into the darkest shade of blue. His brush drifted across the line of the sea that separated it from the horizon, the ink staining into the canvas. 

“I think all I want in the end is for him to realize he doesn’t have to be nice to me like that. Realistically, that is.” Sylphide’s words were split with a short, brutal laugh. “Let’s be real here, he’s got one thing on his mind at any given time and that’s whatever orders we have from His Honour. He only really does any of it because it was on his way and he’ll see everything he doe through to the end.”

He recalled maybe an hour prior, Queen carrying his box of questionable spoils and a blush across his cheeks when he’d mentioned Sylphide’s reaction to his apprentice, the tender vulnerability that he’d so carefully hidden under amusement and love for gossip. “I think he keeps a lot more quiet than he’ll admit to. Alraune Queen sees everything through, but that doesn’t mean he’ll start if he’s not sure. Maybe, for all you know, he’s just not sure if you like him back. I mean, _like_ -like him back.”

Sylphide’s Cosmos flared with deep embarrassment, and under it, what looked like rising hope. It was quickly replaced by a sharp, unforgiving wall of nihilism masquerading as realism. “He’d never go for me. You don’t have to hit where it hurts just because you’ve got me trapped.” His voice was flat, not quite angry but Surplice a little ruffled.

“Syl, Syl, Syl,” he sighed in response, shaking his head a little as he added the dark greens of the trees, sinking traces of a light blue-green to blend with the sea. “Maybe that’s why he’s not sure, because you certainly aren’t. You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t give him a chance.” The words were vaguely familiar, Hades’ soft and somewhat fatherly advice nudging through his memories, a dark and stormy night in the Meikai brought on by his anger the night before he’d burned his hometown to the ground for the memories left haunted in it.

Sylphide’s Cosmos flared with embarrassment, the wall of self-damnation weakening. “If you’re wrong, I’m blaming you. But that doesn’t mean I’m ‘fessing up with roses and mistletoe.”

He laughed. “There’s my nihilistic Basilisk. You should kiss him anyway and tell me all about it.”

***

Pegasus Tenma woke atop what seemed to be a blanket of stars, little more than stars like cobblestones on a pathway through a diamond-studded sky. He knew that he had to be dreaming, having only ever seen a pathway like this when Aries Shion had opened a portal from Italy to Greece, and the Aries Saint wasn’t here. The air didn’t feel any different than usual, but some of the stars seemed a little blurred, like some sort of mist was masking them from proper view. He rose to his feet, slowly, noting that he was still in his nightclothes.

He glanced both ways. The pathway of stars went both left and right, fading out into the distance. He took a breath, vaguely, and started walking left, hands in his pockets and the stars seemingly solid beneath his soundless footsteps.

Something appeared in the distance on the side of the pathway, and he walked a little faster, increasing the speed of his stride once he realized what the silhouette was. He moved easily into a run, keeping his eyes on the figure in the distance that seemed to be resting atop a cluster of starlight. And he slowed as he descended upon the figure, coming to a stop about ten feet away. Hades Alone, his once-best-friend-turned-nemesis, was seated quite comfortably atop a cluster of stars, legs folded cross underneath him and hair a beautiful shade of golden blond. He was smiling, and wearing a tunic and trousers, barefoot under a heavy black robe that was undone at the waist. 

“There you are,” he said, and his voice was soft and achingly familiar and almost-perfect, ruined only by the cadences of dual puberty and deification. He was smiling, a paintbrush tucked behind one ear and what he guessed was a portrait hidden under a white cloth. “I was hoping I’d get to run into you tonight, Tenma. Or rather, I told Hypnos I’d cry if he didn’t make it happen, but that’s no matter now.”

The name was a sharp slice into his gut, the god whose power had downed Sagittarius Sisyphus and who had Capricorn Elcid hunting him down. He steadied himself for a moment, gripping his hip from his pocket, trying not to get angry. There was a feeling in his gut below the slice that said this wasn’t a normal dream, wasn’t a conjuration of Alone from his memories but an actual meeting.

“What do you want, Alone?” he asked, forcing his voice to be gentler than it usually was. Most times he’d seen the other, he’d been yelling at him. “I don’t think you brought me all the way here with Hypnos without a reason.”

Alone broke into a smile, raising his hand to his mouth and laughing a little. He shifted the veiled painting a bit in his lap, smiling at it before looking back up at him. His smile was infuriating, considering all that he’d done since he left with the Spectres and had never once looked back. “It’s snowing in the Underworld,” he said, softly, like it wasn’t what he wanted to say but was leading into it. “My Spectres are all cheer and sneaking around and figuring out schedules so everyone who needs to be on the surface can go say hello to their families. There’s an awful lot to be done to make sure we’re not running entirely on a skeleton crew… Pardon the pun.”

Against his better instincts, he cracked a small smile. Alone continued. “I didn’t think a portrait would be appropriate, and maybe I don’t know too well what you like now, but I do know what you did like. So… Here. Happy Haloea, and merry Christmas, too.”

He held out the veiled portrait, and Tenma took it. He pulled the veil off, doing all he could to be gentle with it. It wasn’t a portrait at all. It was a watercolour landscape, of a dreamy setting he couldn’t remember ever seeing before. The trees were tall and bright greens, the grasses a deeper shade, and surrounding the roots were roses upon roses, all of which he tended to avoid as best he could when travelling with Dohko up the hill. The grasses appeared to be on a cliff overlooking the sea, all Alone’s-eyes-bright blue over a dark sky full of constellations, Pegasus and Capricorn particularly bright. And in the centre of the painting were the backs of two people he knew: the both of them, sitting side by side with their feet hanging over the cliff’s edge, Alone’s head resting on his shoulder and his arm around his waist.

He gripped the edges of the painting a little tighter. On one hand, it was beautiful, and hurt in exactly the right places, and his heart was suddenly beating in his throat, much higher than it had been before. On the other, the last painting he’d seen of Alone was the Lost Canvas, which would kill everyone, and his own portrait, which had killed him, too. It may be a dream, but Hypnos ruled here and he wasn’t too sure if that would matter.

Alone, for his part, seemed to recognize the hesitancy. “No plants or people were harmed in the painting of this,” he said, hands raised in surrender. “There’s a sigil I put on the back that disables that particular effect. I do that when I draw my Spectres, too, they find it awfully inconvenient when someone has to mop them up off the floor. You needn’t worry about your mortality. We’ll be together soon enough, no need to press it any earlier unless you want me to.”

He finally tore his gaze away from the painting to look up at him, and Alone was standing now, nervously smiling, his Cosmos suddenly and noticeably unsure. “I love it,” he blurted hastily, both because it was true and because he had to say _something_. He knew he wasn’t going to see it outside of a dream, but it was still painfully perfect.

Alone’s smile grew brighter, his Cosmos flaring with joy. He raised his hand open in offering. “Walk with me?”

Tenma rewrapped the portrait, settling it under his arm. He nodded, smiling back at him, and took his hand. Alone lead the way down the pathway of stars, and his vision seemed to tilt, a little, until the stars were slowly replaced by lyrical brushstrokes and painted colour until they were walking down a grassy painted pathway with roses fencing them in and the canopy of painted leaves high above them. It was like walking through the painting itself, without the cliff in sight. Alone’s hand was soft, mostly unblemished, tight against his own.

Alone was the first to break the silence as they walked down the pathway, bringing Tenma’s attention back to his voice instead of the landscape around them. “I miss having you around so much,” he said, simply, and it needed no adornment or explanation of what he’d been up to. 

He could only nod. It was mutual, not having Alone around to accidentally instigate fights he could win with Cosmos he was sure he had and had no idea how to control. Yato and Yuzuriha were good friends, so was Leo Regulus and all the others, but none of them could even come close to the relationship he had with Alone. Sasha was… different. Duty separated them, and had for so many years now that what had been might never be recovered now. Alone’s departure, though three years old now, was still fresh to him. It was still his smile that woke him up at night, still his absence that he felt raw in his side.

“I miss having you around all the time, too,” he said finally, knowing it wasn’t quite enough. “Are you…” He knew what he wanted to say, but not how to say it. He wanted to know that the Spectres at least had the decency to treat his friend right, that he had enough food like they so often didn’t back in Italy, that they’d let him keep the puppy he’d adopted, too. He couldn’t much ask about his relationship with Hades, not if he wanted to keep the peace between them tonight. He’d ask, and Alone would ask him to join him, and he’d refuse, and they’d go down the hole of trying to kill each other all over again. “Are you happy, where you are?”

Alone kept walking, but looked up at him, his Cosmos and expression indicating surprise at the question. He took a moment in silence to think about his answer. “Yes,” he replied, after a pause. “You’re not here where you should be, by my side, arguing with Kagaho and Aiacos and making snarky comments at Lune until he makes you tea just to get you to stop talking, which is where you should be. But… It’s snowing in most places and I’m watching Queen and Sylphide fall in love and Aiacos is going to wear something for Haloea that is completely unacceptable and also deeply funny, and Pefko and I are going to see how many bowls of Yuletide stew we can eat before Luco runs out and we need to thieve Valentine’s kitchen supply, and at the end Hades is going to tell us he told us so when we complain about eating too much, and then fake theatrical sorrow at the bread he just baked going uneaten. And then we will eat that too, and regret nothing. I’m happy, yes, but it would be better if you were there, too.”

The war hung in the air between them, unspoken, unacknowledged, and Tenma distinctly felt that this dream was meant to be free of any cruel reality or thoughts; and it didn’t matter right now, because Alone was _there_ , and holding his hand, and not currently trying to kill him in the name of salvation, and that was the only thing that mattered. He squeezed Alone’s hand in reassurance, and the pathway opened up in front of them before he could figure out how to respond to that. There was the cliff, exactly like the painting, and the only thing it was missing was that they weren’t sitting there yet, right in the middle. He stepped forward, leading his companion, and settled down with his knees just off the cliff, hanging below, the painting safely a few feet away on the grass. Alone settled down beside him on his left, exactly where he should have been.

“It’d be nice to spend Haloea together,” he said, softly, moreso out loud to himself than to Alone. “Maybe one year you can show me your inspiration for wherever we are right now. I’d like that.”

Alone only smiled a little more, mischief in his eyes that matched the colour of the sea. “I think we are spending Haloea together, right here, right now,” he answered, voice just as soft, still a little mischievous. “I mean. I could sneak you out of Sanctuary. I already have three Spectres that have to sneak into Sanctuary this week to drop off gifts for their Saint family members, I’m sure one of them could sneak you back here on their way out. But, either way… We’re still here. Still together.”

Tenma laughed a little in lieu of an answer, and he let go of his hand to slip his arm around his waist, resting it on his hip. He reached over with his free hand to take his hand again, which was warm and soft and seemed just right. Alone’s Cosmos flared a little more with joy, and though he couldn’t see his face right from this angle, Alone leaned in and rested his temple on his shoulder, which also seemed just right. Tenma’s heart fluttered up into his throat again, and he found himself leaning back, resting his cheek on the top of his companion’s hair, and pulling him just a little closer.

Sitting there, staring at the sea and the stars on the distant horizon, their legs hanging off the cliffside, Alone peaceful and happy leaning up against him, exactly where he should have been all along. Tenma smiled a little more to himself, feeling the muscles in his neck and back relax. It was easy to be exactly here, right now, easier than he’d ever realized. ‘Easy as falling in love,’ Dohko would have joked, and-

Oh.

 _Oh_. It made more sense than he might have realized otherwise, and it was true, wasn’t it? As easy as falling in love, because he was, because he had been, and it had taken him at least three years to figure it out. He lifted his eyes to the canopy above them, feeling heat settle in on his cheeks. The canopy was all branches and thick with leaves and crawling plants, one specific plant jumping out at him in particular with a multicolour amount of snow-white and scarlet berries.

“You painted all this, didn’t you?” he remarked, eyes on the plant above. “You put such attention to every detail… I don’t even recognize that plant.”

Alone lifted his head a little without displacing Tenma’s cheek from his hair, eyeing it. “That’s mistletoe,” he answered. “Our healers grow them around this part of the Meikai, Dryad Luco thinks they contrast well with his lilies. They’re really, really poisonous, which is true of just about anything that isn’t specifically grown to be edible in the Underworld.”

He felt Alone squeeze his hand as he finished, his Cosmos flickering with some emotion he didn’t quite recognize. Rather, he did recognize it, as it matched his own, but didn’t quite believe it.

He shifted his position a little, looking down into those innocent-looking blue eyes. Alone let go of his hand, resting it on his thigh, and he had a feeling he knew what was going to happen before it did. He froze, his breath caught and held in his throat just below his heart, and his eyes widened just as Alone closed his and he felt an inexplicable warmth meet his lips. The kiss was brief, and chaste, and the warmth was fleeting as Alone pulled away from him, his pale cheeks suddenly red, his Cosmos flaring back into anxiety.

He blinked, once, twice, several times, trying to clear the sudden fog from his thoughts. Alone had kissed him. Alone had actually, really, truly, _kissed_ him. What brought him out of the fog wasn’t Alone’s face, sweet and blushing and beautiful and Hades-free, wasn’t the picturesque and painted landscape around them, wasn’t even the sudden still of his heartbeat that meant it clear he had probably just died of shock. It was Dohko’s voice, exhausted and brave, muttering a blunt and honest ‘Oh, fuck it,’ as Tenma watched him turn on his heel to go talk to Aries Shion about something entirely unrelated to battle.

Alone was still blushing, and broke the silence nervously, stammering, “I-I mean, if I’ve completely misread this that’s fine I just-”

“Oh, you get back over here,” he said, cutting him off, entirely unaware he was saying anything at all, and reached over to take a hold on Alone’s robe collar and pull him in again, hoping his aim was decent enough as he closed his eyes to kiss him back. Alone’s hasty apology died before Tenma heard it, and he felt a soft hand trace around his neck and grip him near his spine. The kiss was something he’d call ‘terrible for a kiss but awesome for the first try’ later on, though he didn’t know it yet. Alone smacked his chin against his own at least twice and he didn’t care, pressing their lips together pretty much as hard as he could with no real idea on how it was supposed to work. Tenma’s hands found their way to Alone’s waist, holding him there, keeping him close.

They broke not for needed air - though they needed that too - but because of badly-muffled snickering behind them, away from the cliff. Tenma pulled Alone closer, pushing him between his legs as he shifted his weight to turn towards the invader. Alone’s Cosmos was flared with joy and startle, leaning into his chest, hands still wrapped around his neck. The snickering was coming from inside the rose barrier, made by a tall man in a robe very similar to Alone’s, with yellow hair and glasses and a violet lined star on his forehead, a hand slapped across his mouth as he laughed.

“Hypnos,” Alone greeted, his tone more annoyed than anything. “Just because I told you to make us a dream doesn’t mean you get to spy on us.”

The man - Hypnos, apparently - quelled his laughter for the most part, turning to look at them fully, still shaking his head. “Sorry, Master Alone,” he said, sounding entirely unapologetic. “Dear Thanatos owes me dinner now, that’s all. I told him you’d kiss the boy and he wouldn’t fall off the cliff immediately, and he didn’t believe me. I did need to see if I was getting dinner after all.”

Alone took his hands off of Tenma’s neck, and he found he mourned the sudden loss of warmth, and folded his arms in a mock-glare. Hypnos raised his hands in surrender, and was suddenly gone. Tenma looked down at his companion, whose lips and face were much redder than they had been previously. Laughter bubbled out of him, suddenly, and Alone joined him, and the last thing he saw was Alone’s face, bright red and beautiful in his arms.

He sat up, suddenly, in his bed in the Bronze Saint bunkers, glancing at Yato in the bunk below him and three of his closest friends around him, the hall filled with snoring. The window he could see indicated it was at least an hour before dawn. Beside him was a note, in Alone’s familiar and neat handwriting. He reached over to look it over. 

“Tenma,

I left something with the Libra Saint for you. Thanks for the kiss, it was awesome.

Alone”

The ‘o’ in his name had been replaced by a heart, and he felt heat rise to his cheeks again. Then he reread it again, and found himself down the ladder of the bed and onto the floor faster than he could process the note, stuffing his feet into shoes and heading outside and up the hill to go bother his mentor. He was through the Aries Temple before he even noticed that Shion wasn’t there, up through Taurus and Gemini and all the way to Libra. He caught a glimpse of the clocktower on his way up, noting about an hour and a half before dawn, just after four.

He rapped on the door beside the main entrance: there were two ways through a Zodiacal Temple, either the straight-through path that everyone took and could be blocked off at a moment’s notice but was generally left open so the Gold Saints could sleep; or the residential front door that actually got you into the temple proper. He was at the residential door, and felt Dohko’s Cosmos flicker from ‘out cold’ to ‘awake and irritated about it’. He might’ve been sorry later, but Alone had left something for him, and he tapped the ball of his foot against the marble floor excitedly, humming to himself, the kiss they’d shared still tingling on his lips.

Dohko cracked open the door, hair a ruffled disaster and from his body, only a thin triangle of bare shoulder, arm, and rib actually visible. He looked exhausted, like he’d been up all night training even though Tenma knew he’d been given leave to head to bed earlier than usual. “What do you want, Tenma?” he grumbled, blinking at him with evident sleepiness.

“One of my friends said he left something for me in your temple, can I go look for it?” he answered, voice a little higher-pitched than usual. Dohko probably wouldn’t notice how full of energy he was.

“Tenma, it is _four in the morning_.”

“Well, can I?”

Dohko grumbled in response. “Give me a moment.” He shut the door, and Tenma heard shuffling and muffled swearing from the other side of the entryway. The door opened again, and Dohko stepped aside, dressed in a pair of night-trousers that were entirely too long for him and looked hastily put on. Tenma stepped through the threshold, humming. Dohko closed the door behind him and muttered something about making himself some tea, not bothering to offer him any.

He only vaguely noted the Cosmos of Shion in Dohko’s quarters proper, too distracted by his quest to make any remark of it. He scanned over the entry hall, heading into the main living-and-dining room attached to Dohko’s kitchen. Dohko followed him, somewhat blearily, probably with the curiosity of what had gotten left in his temple that he hadn’t noticed. Then, he saw something, tucked between the sofa and the wall - a rectangular something, covered in a white sheet and tied with a ribbon, a single red leaf slipped through the ribbon.

He went over to it, dropping onto his knees and pulling the wrapped portrait from its hiding place. The leaf was a poinsetta, and he pulled it free, undoing the ribbon and unwrapping Alone’s watercolour landscape. He stared at it, tracing a fingertip gently over the dried paint, exactly as he remembered it from his dream. Alone’s artist signature was in the corner, nothing more than his first name with a lined star in the place of the ‘o’, messy and almost illegible to those who didn’t know it already.

“That’s a nice piece,” Dohko remarked, voice tired and coming from just over his shoulder. “I don’t suppose you actually have a place to hang it up, though. I suppose we can hang it up in here?”

Tenma nodded, shifting his weight onto his hip and held out the painting. Dohko took it, scanning the room for a good place. He set it down on the sofa and left, returning a few minutes later with a hammer and a small box of nails, aligning two into place and making quite a ruckus putting them in. He heard shuffling from behind him once they were both in place, and he looked, noting Shion in the doorway, hair even messier than Dohko’s, and he made the split-second decision to not look below his navel, solidly looking him in the eye instead.

Shion scanned the portrait. “That yours, Dohko?” he asked, his tone about as tired as Dohko’s was. Dohko shook his head.

“No, Tenma needs a place to hang it up.” He glanced over at Tenma, eyeing him with a glint in his eyes that implied he wasn’t as tired as he looked, and was thinking a bit more. “You don’t happen to know this artist, do you?”

He felt heat rise to his cheeks in response. “We’re friends,” he answered, a smug half-smile playing on his lips that still tingled with a dream’s kiss, and the flicker of Cosmos in the back of his mind indicated someone powerful and dark departing Sanctuary, one more Spectre off to go make stew for his best friend. “I’m thankful for it.”


End file.
